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fp Creative’s Long Distance: live performance and collaboration

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by Jarrett Hoffman

The response to the pandemic from fp Creative has been both sensitive and — well, creative. The organization has devoted a page of its website to relief fund resources, and has divided its programming into two categories of “Long Distance” offerings: live performances, and new artistic collaborations taking place over the web.

“Collabs” is the name they’ve coined for the latter endeavor. In early April, they sent out a request for submissions of short recordings from instrumentalists, poets, and sound designers “to capture the sounds of their new daily,” as the organization writes on its website. A handful of producers and composers then sampled those submissions, weaving them into pieces of music.

The first — and very striking — release came on Friday, May 1, and is available to stream here. It takes the form of an album in collage style, with eight short tracks representing a spectrum of compositional styles from Will Cayanan, Erica MacLeod, Richard Graham (a.k.a. Signals Under Tests), Seyu, Devin Hinzo, and Graham Rosen.

[Read more…]

Downtime, anxiety, hope: checking in with five area musicians

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by Jarrett Hoffman

How are you? That question feels more meaningful than usual right now, not just a greeting but a real entry point into each other’s changed lives.

I reached out to five area musicians to see how they’re steering themselves through the Coronavirus crisis, and how they’re spending their time when the slate of performance work has been wiped clean.

Their replies by email — a mix of serious, thoughtful, and lighthearted — touched on a variety of topics: their downtime, their feelings about social media, what they miss about live music, their anxiety, and their hopes for the future.

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fp Creative launches new season at Snap House Studios November 14

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by Mike Telin

After an extraordinary debut concert season, Fresh Perspectives founder Devin Hinzo and program manager Justin Gunter spent the past summer thinking about how to bring to fruition the organization’s goal of creating an incubator for area musicians to develop projects. That thinking was turned into action, and this week audiences can experience what the organization now known as fp Creative is all about.

On Thursday, November 14 beginning at 7:00 pm at Snap House Studios in Cleveland, fp Creative will present “Pretty in Green #galaforthepeople.” Audiences are invited to wear their best green-hued or nature-inspired fashion, with prizes for those “with the freshest cuts.” Enjoy earthly delights, take pictures with interactive installations, and hear fp Creative’s inaugural emerging artists-in-residence, Catharsis Winds, in concert.

The program includes Piazzolla’s Libertango (arr. Jeff Scott), Gabriela Ortiz’ Puzzle-tocas, and David Maslanka’s Quintet No. 1. Installation and performance artist Susie Underwood will be on hand creating something special for the event. General Admission costs zero to fifteen dollars at the door. RSVP here. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: Uno Lady, McDaniel + Kirkwood, & Stephan Haluska at Mahall’s (Mar. 29)

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by Rory O’Donoghue

“This next one will have all the homosexuals in the room grabbing a vodka cranberry,” composer Buck McDaniel said winkingly to a packed crowd at Mahall’s last Friday night, March 29. “Including me,” he added. It was perfect commentary for the energetic kickoff event of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony’s 6th NEOSonicFest, an evening that celebrated both cocktails and contemporary music.

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M.U.S.i.C. hosts Spring Cabaret (Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics)

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by Mike Telin

Providing performance opportunities for emerging musicians in Northeast Ohio is the driving principle behind M.U.S.i.C. (Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics). Under the discerning guidance of artistic director Jodi Kanter, the organization finds venues, arranges concerts, and supplies printed programs, publicity and refreshments. They also pay their performers, most of whom are students at one of the area’s conservatories or schools of music.

On Sunday, April 7 at 3:30 pm in Orange Village Hall, M.U.S.i.C. will present its Classical Cabaret No. 22. “A Celebration of Spring” will feature violinists Maria Park and Alexandra Switala, cellists Chauncey Aceret, Alex Glaubitz, Benjamin Rogers, and Rebecca Shasberger, pianists Gastón Frydman, Arseniy Gusev, Alexander Kostritsa, Nikolay Pushkarev, and Amy Tan, double-bassist Henry Samuels, oboist Devin Hinzo, and vocalists Bryant Bush and Jung Eun Oh.

The program includes Beethoven’s “Scherzo” and “Rondo” (Spring Sonata), Mozart’s “Allegro vivace assai” (Spring Quartet) and “Per questa bella mano,” Piazzolla’s “Primavera,” Prokofiev’s “Spring Fairy” (Cinderella), excerpts from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring for piano four hands, Ravel’s Bolero arranged for cello quartet, and songs by Mahler and Debussy. Tickets include food and beverages and are available online.

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NEOSonicFest kicks off on Friday at Mahall’s

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by Mike Telin

Cleveland Chamber Symphony launches its sixth NEOSonicFest on Friday, March 29 at 9:00 pm at Mahall’s in Lakewood with a concert in partnership with Fresh Perspectives. Uno Lady (Christa Ebert), a one-woman choir, will create electronic loops, harpist Stephan Haluska will present his own electro-acoustical compositions, and Buck McDaniel and Jacob Kirkwood will present a concert version of their live electro-acoustic score written for Cleveland Public Theatre’s Fire on the Water, a meditation on the 50th anniversary of the burning of the Cuyahoga River. The evening will also feature “signature cocktails” available for purchase. Tickets go for $7.

In a recent conference call, Fresh Perspective’s Devin Hinzo said that when they were looking for a venue to present McDaniel’s and Kirkwood’s piece, they immediately thought of Mahall’s. “They support local and emerging musicians as well as music that doesn’t fit any particular genre, so it seemed like a natural fit.”

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NEOSonicFest: a look back at the beginning, and a peek at what’s on tap in 2019

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by Jarrett Hoffman

When a festival runs for long enough, it becomes interesting to look back and remember that it wasn’t always a staple of the local culture. At one time, it was entirely new.

“Last weekend,” Daniel Hathaway wrote in April of 2014, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony “burst suddenly into bloom like a crocus after a long winter with the first of two concerts anchoring its promising new enterprise, NEOSonicFest…”

Back then, music director Steven Smith had been thinking for years about how to keep the name and activities of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony alive, as Mike Telin reported in our very first preview of NEOSonicFest. The retirement of the orchestra’s founder, Edwin London, and the end of its residency at Cleveland State University had slowed the group’s momentum.

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Burning River Baroque tells
the “Other Side of the Story”

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by Mike Telin

Curating thoughtfully-programmed, politically-inspired concerts has become a calling card for the innovative, Cleveland-based ensemble Burning River Baroque.

In the past year, soprano Malina Rauschenfels and harpsichordist Paula Maust have presented “Suppressed Voices: Music of the Banished” which featured music by Johann Rosenmüller —  a German who escaped to Italy after being imprisoned for homosexuality — and Peter Philips, who was imprisoned as a Catholic in Anglican England, then later fled to the Spanish Netherlands. “Destructive Desires” examined works by Couperin, Rameau, Jacquet de la Guerre, Caccini, Eccles, and Courbois under the light of the #MeToo era.

On Wednesday, March 20 at Glo, Rauschenfels and Maust will be joined by Sarah Lynn, baroque flute, and Glenna Curren, baroque cello, in a concert titled “The Other Side of the Story.” The program, which draws on ancient mythology, literature, and Biblical passages, highlights characters whose viewpoints are underrepresented.

Presented by Fresh Perspectives, the evening includes a 6:45 pm pre-concert talk with host Devin Hinzo and musician Zach Manzi. [Read more…]

“Fresh Perspectives” lives up to its name (Nov. 2)

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by Mike Telin

Walking into the Lab Studios by Glo, around 6:45 pm on Friday, November 2, I was met with a large crowd standing just inside the door listening attentively to poetry being recited from an adjoining, grotto-like space. Attractive art decorated the walls and a makeshift bar was set up in a kitchen area, while high-top tables held snacks. An area for a DJ was located against the back wall adjacent to a white stage area that resembled an in-ground pool turned on its side. It was clear from the get go that the evening was not going to be an ordinary classical music concert presented in an alternative space — this was going to be a happening. [Read more…]

Margaret Brouwer’s Voice of the Lake, revised version at CIM (Oct. 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

On October 19, almost a year after its debut, Margaret Brouwer’s ambitious oratorio Voice of the Lake, chronicling the most recent environmental assaults on Lake Erie, was revived in an updated version in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The affecting and nearly flawless performance conducted by Domenico Boyagian, involved soloists (Angela Mortellaro, soprano, Sarah Beaty, mezzo-soprano, Brian Skoog, tenor, and Bryant Bush, bass), the 15-member Blue Streak Ensemble and 12 voices of the Blue Streak Ensemble Chamber Singers, and the 21-voice Cleveland Institute of Music Children’s Choir. [Read more…]

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